Insight’s 10-year quest for portfolio management software

First up: Congratulations to EJF Capital. The firm, which manages hedge funds, private equity funds and structured products, has taken on a minority investor in the form of Kudu Investment Management (press release here). Kudu was set up in 2015 with the backing of listed insurer White Mountains Insurance Group. It has now backed nine managers, according to its site, none of which is a conventional PE firm (hence it not being included in our October deep dive into the topic).

Second: Back to tech. If your firm is in the business of investing in technology companies, then you need to be doubly sure of yourself when buying in a software solution. Why? Because everyone in your deal team has an opinion. Mark Lessing, CFO of Insight Partners, knows this better than most; his quest for a PE portfolio management system took him through countless meetings, a self-build project – that was barely a success – and finally saw him settle on the right solution. You can read his story here.

Anyone in London? Philippa Kent and I will be at the Women in Private Equity Forum today and tomorrow morning. Diversity is but one of the agenda items. We’ll be keeping ears out for anything pertinent to CFOs.

Email prepared by Toby Mitchenall.